Aeva, a company building a next-generation sensing system for autonomous vehicles, is partnering with AID (Autonomous Intelligent Driving GmbH), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Audi AG and the “center of excellence” for Volkswagen Group’s autonomous driving system, to bring 4D LiDAR to its autonomous vehicle program.

Aeva will develop and equip its 4D LiDAR technology as a part of AID’s new Audi e-tron development fleet vehicles in Munich, with the plan to bring autonomous driving to urban mobility services within the next few years.

Unlike most conventional time-of-flight LiDAR technology—where high-power pulses of light are used and the flight time for each pulse is measured to create a 3D map of the environment—Aeva’s sensing technology uses continuous low-power laser to sense instant velocity of every point per frame, at ranges up to 300m. This produces a 4D map of the environment where the instant velocity information drastically enhances the detection and classification of all critical objects such as pedestrians, bicycles & vehicles at distance.

Aeva’s technology is also free from interference from other sensors or sunlight. Together, these features strengthen AID’s proprietary perception capabilities and improve the safety of autonomous driving vehicles.

Aeva was founded in 2017 by Soroush Salehian, and Mina Rezk—previously engineering leaders at Apple & Nikon.